topics: bregnatius, forgery, malachus, ourstories, transmission

By Adam Bregman:

Previously unknown sources of music theory and practice from the past do not often resurface but, when they do, discovering their contents always leaves us trembling with excitement and fascination. This is especially true of those rare gems that bear remarkable thoughts on music and confront exceptional issues not typically treated in such sources. The following transcript was made from the only known surviving fragment of a music treatise print discovered only recently in the library of Hume Castle, Northumberland, neatly pinned against the wall behind books of a mainly philosophical nature. Although a small hole has obstructed some of the title, the content indicates that it would have read Cap. IV: A Briefe Discourse on [Voyce] in Musicke.

Following the Socratic method, typical of treatises from the second half of the sixteenth century, a dialogue between a master, Malachus, and his pupil, Bregnatius, considers voice in diverse musi-cal contexts. Unusual for this dialogic style, which typically incorporates living persons from the author’s immediate entourage or allegorical figures, is that Malachus (ca. 1335-99) and Bregnatius (d. 1407) were historical musicians, active in the second half of the fourteenth century (i.e. two hundred years earlier than the treatise seems to have been compiled). Besides the dates given, ascertained from death records, not much information has surfaced on the lives or professional posts of these two musicians. We only know that they were on the forefront of the so-called ars subtilior style in England (in fact, they may have been the only two to champion the style off of the continent) and have one extant composition to their names, Crass torrent prowl lucks.[1] This secular song with an English text, a rare example from the time written in a dialect yet to be determined, does not adhere to any recognizable forme fixe, but displays features common to music of the late fourteenth century: a florid melodic line, contrasting meters, and regular evasion of cadences. Less conventional is the ambiguous play it demonstrates between mi and fa, as well as its aggressive employment of coniunctae.[2] Hopefully further research will reveal the origin of the text and its full meaning, as well as the unique musical language of the composition.

Turning to the contents of the treatise fragment, A Briefe Discourse treats theoretical, practical, and philosophical issues of voice. While theoretical discussions of the “voice” of a note as its solmization syllable and, thus, function and propriety [situating it within one of the three hexachords (six-note “scales”): the soft beginning on F, the natural beginning on C, or the hard beginning on G] usually unfold in music treatises of the period, they more rarely expound issues of physical voice related to performance practice.[3] The author explores different types of vocal qualities in singers and, remarkably, broaches gender studies in an extremely progressive discussion of the qualities of “voice” (i.e. the syllables). Sharing in the opinion, found in select sources from the mid-thirteenth to late sixteenth centuries,[4] that the syllables mi and fa possessed inherent masculine and feminine qualities, respectively, the author defends mi-mi and fa-fa (i.e., homosexual) note relationships, both melodic and harmonic, as concords against Nature’s desire for mi and fa to be “naturally” paired as man and woman, since the result of the latter is a discord (i.e. a tritone, diminished fifth, or augmented/diminished octave), in what is essentially their reasoning for the “necessary” use of musica ficta.

Finally, this treatise provides a philosophical discussion of the voice as it pertains to the composer of the text, the composer of the musical setting of a text, and the performer of the compound musico-textual composition, a case perhaps otherwise unheard of in Renaissance literature. Most unprecedented is the author’s reassessment and reassignment of the terms “passive” and “active” voice. In a musical performance in which the author(s) of the text and the musical setting do not partake, the author of A Briefe Discourse terms their voice(s) passive: they are represented and resounded but not directly implicated. The term “active voice” applies to that of the performer, the present cause or source of the immediate performance. Such attention to agency presents an extremely rare consideration for the intent of the author, at a time when the idea of copyright would have been unfathomable, and when the revival of classical rhetoric tutors stipulated the benefits of learning through imitation. Rediscovered after hundreds of years, a historical text as exceptional as A Briefe Discourse deserves our full attention; we should harvest and take full advantage of everything it has to offer to better inform our concept of historical performance practice. With this reproduction of such a unique glimpse into historical thought, our intention is to provide the scholar of Renaissance music a new tool for understanding, accessing, respecting, and reconstructing “Voyce in musicke.” Los Angeles, May 2018